Best practices for managing dedicated offshore teams
How do you get the best out of your nearshore development team? Take a look at these six best practices, and manage your outsourced team to success.
Define a strategic vision
You can't get where you need to be if you don't know where that is. Start with a strategic development vision. This is a general roadmap for what you want to achieve
with an nearshore development team.
Perhaps you have an idea for a new product you want to launch. Maybe you are thinking of overhauling an existing product for your customers. Or it could be that you
want to expand the service you offer to SaaS clients. Deciding on your long-term vision will give you and your outsourced teams direction.
Break the vision into milestones and priorities
Your outsourced development team is just like your own team. It's made up of human personnel. This is why it's important not to overwhelm this team or swamp them with
unmanageable tasks. Breaking down your strategic vision into achievable milestones and priorities will help keep everything on track.
This will also help you to check your progress. Hitting incremental milestones provides confidence that you are heading in the right direction. You can work with your
development team to define these short-term objectives so everyone is on the same page.
Target efficient onboarding
Lack of company knowledge is one of the big challenges we've listed above. It will take time for your nearshore development team to get up to speed. They'll need to
learn about your company culture. They'll also need to get familiar with the tools and systems your own teams use.
The goal here is efficiency. Provide support to your outsourced development team so they can get up to speed without delay. A great outsourced team will be made up of
fast learners. But you can accelerate this further by offering close support during onboarding.
Optimize communication systems
Communication is critical to breaking down barriers. This is how you and your outsourced development teams will stay in touch, collaborating on key duties. So, define
your communication channels ahead of time.
You may want to use instant messaging to keep teams in touch while they work. You might also back this up with regular video conferencing meetings. Unified cloud
storage systems and tools will also help your personnel work together. No matter where your outsourced team is based, digital technology can bring your personnel
together. Just make sure everyone is using the same communication solutions.
Coordinate operations
Time zone differences is another big challenge. If your business is based in Boston, there might be almost a full day between you and your development team in Manila or
Jakarta. While you won't be able to synchronize operations completely, you can achieve some coordination.
Plan times when your teams can overlap. Schedule video conferencing and progress checks for these times. Put in place a handover system so development operations
transfer seamlessly between outsourced and in-house teams. Making these provisions will help you coordinate with development teams even on other continents.
Boost efficiency with agile
You need your development team to be as efficient as possible. This is why it's best to choose a team that uses the Agile methodology. With Agile, product segments are
completed concurrently. Operations are broken down into streamlined, straightforward processes. All of this helps you achieve your aims more quickly and more
effectively.
There are different types of Agile processes. Meet with your development partners ahead of time, and find out more about which methods they prefer to use. There's no
right or wrong way to go about Agile. However, a good-quality team will be able to tell you which method they use and why.